(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a server system, a user terminal, and a service providing method and service providing apparatus using the server system and the user terminal suitable for use in an information delivering system using, for example, a portable terminal.
(2) Description of Related Art
With development of mobile communications, contents of services provided from the provider to the users diversify. For example, navigation service and the like are developed. It is said that the final object of the mobile communications is that anyone can communicate with someone at any place at any time. For this purpose, the ubiquitous space has been proposed.
The applicant of this application has proposed an information providing service, wherein the user obtains information about a menu, the degree of crowdedness and the like of a restaurant which is a tenant of a building located within the sight of the user, using a user terminal of the user (refer to, for example, patent document 1). The information providing service system described in the patent document 1 has a user terminal having a positioning function, and a server system holding a database in which a specific region (a restaurant on the ninth floor of the building or the like) in three-dimensional real space and service information (a menu of the restaurant, comments, etc.) defined in a virtual space linked to the specific region are related to each other. When the user points the user terminal to the ninth floor of the building and presses a positioning button (retrieving button), the user terminal positions position information (latitude, longitude, altitude, azimuth, tilt angle and the like) and transmits the positioned position information to the server system. When receiving the position information, the server system transmits plural pieces of service information retrieved on the basis of the position information to the user terminal.
In the database to which the user accesses, a specific space in three-dimensional apace is formed in a virtual space called balloon data (bubble data), and buildings, restaurants, etc. are recreated using the balloon data. The server system uses position information on the user terminal as a tag for retrieval (position information tag) when retrieving service information in the database.
Techniques relating time-space have been proposed (refer to, for example, non-patent document 1). A system described in the non-patent document uses an object called SpaceTag which can be accessed in limited time-space. “SpaceTag” is arbitrary information such as text, picture, voice, program, etc., which is accessible at a specific place and time. The user browses the information, using a terminal for “SpaceTag” having a time-space coordinates line (for example, watch and GPS).
Patent Document: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-132806
Non-patent Document: “SpaceTag: Objects with Spatio-Temporally Limited Access”, Interactive System and Software VI, Kindai Kagakusha, pp. 1-10, December 1998, Tarumi, Morishita, Nakao, Kamibayashi.
However, the service by the above system is only offer of information on menu and the like. Additionally, the database uses only position information as a retrieving tag, thus the position information is used as only a tag. Thus, the database is used within a limited range. The database holds a number of pieces of service information, but does not define relationships among the plural pieces of the service information. Accordingly, the above system has a disadvantage that the system cannot provide, at any time, service information having high utility value obtained by uniting plural pieces of service information to the user.
When the user obtains the above service information by retrieving in the database, the retrieval tag (retrieval index) for retrieving in the database is only position information on the user terminal. In order to provide service information that is available by the user in a wide area, it is necessary to widen the area of the position information used as the retrieval tag, which is difficult to be put in practice, and is difficult to effectively use the storing area of the database.
When it is desired to develop various information providing services, there is possibility that an increase in information service causes an increase in information quantity, which further causes lack of the information processing performance of the server system because information about “in which area,” “what service,” and so forth is not available. Further, since the database holds only information about “accessed/not accessed”, there is a problem that there is no way of limiting the number of accesses.